Murder They Did: Thompson Anniversary Recalls High-Profile Spousal Slayings

The state Supreme Court last week upheld the first-degree murder conviction of a St. Paul man, Nick Firkus, for the 2010 murder of his wife, Heidi, rejecting the husband’s claim that the slaying was committed by an unknown intruder. A jury in Ramsey County had refused to accept that defense in 2023, some 13 years after the woman was shot in the back in her home. Rather, it agreed with the prosecution that the murder was committed by her husband to hide from Heidi the couple’s financial troubles—troubles he knew of but that were unbeknownst to her.

The denouement of the Firkus case recalls one of the capital city’s most notorious spousal slayings, which happens to be marking a pair of milestones this winter. This week—Friday, March 6, to be precise—is the 63rd anniversary of the murder of St. Paul housewife Carol Thompson, orchestrated by her husband, St. Paul lawyer T. Eugene Thompson, with the aid of a middleman and the actual killer. This winter also saw the 60th anniversary of the state Supreme Court’s January 7, 1966, decision affirming Thompson’s conviction by a jury in Hennepin County.

The Thompson murder-for-hire slaying occurred barely a century after Minnesota’s first highly noted murder in the same city, when Ann Bilanski was convicted in 1859 of poisoning her husband to death. For that deed she was executed—the first and only woman in Minnesota to meet that fate. But the Thompson case was not the only spousal murder-for-hire case in Minnesota; a little over a decade later, it was replicated in Waseca, about 75 miles southwest of the Twin Cities.

These incidents, with their similarities and differences, are part of the law and lore of the Twin Cities and Minnesota, and they warrant recalling on the milestones of the Thompson slaying.

The Thompson Trial

The Thompson murder prompted a national media frenzy as it moved through the state court system for years with multiple appeals. The well-connected St. Paul lawyer from Blue Earth was convicted by a Hennepin County District Court jury after the case had been transferred there on a change of venue due to massive prejudicial publicity in St. Paul, where the proceeding began.

But that offered little solace to the defense, as the media spotlight was just as intense across the river. This was exemplified by a Minneapolis daily newspaper story featuring an unprecedented interview with a prospective juror during jury selection, among other reportorial excesses. The daylight slaying took place in the Thompson family home in the prosperous Highland Park section of St. Paul while the victim was alone in the house.

Thompson’s conviction was sealed by several factors, including the testimony of the slayer, small-time crook Dick W. C. Anderson, who committed the crime for a $3,000 payoff from the middleman, career criminal Norman Mastrian. Mastrian, a one-time client of Thompson, was the source of the funding.

But wait, there was much more. The prosecution was supplemented with the “sizzle” of Thompson obtaining a little more than $1 million of life insurance on his spouse shortly before the crime, complemented by an on-again, off-again affair with his young, unmarried secretary.

Thompson, known as “Cotton” for the blond crew-cut atop his diminutive frame, did himself little favor by testifying at length during the six-week trial, which yielded a life sentence for first-degree murder. That was the maximum punishment since Minnesota had banned capital punishment in 1911. The ban followed a gruesome, botched hanging in the basement of the Ramsey County jailhouse five years earlier of William Williams, who had murdered a boy he was sexually involved with and the boy’s objecting mother.

Thompson’s appeal to the state Supreme Court raised eight issues, the most intriguing being his claim that prejudicial media reporting tainted the trial. But the jurists didn’t “cotton” to any of them. Dredging through the issues, the court pointed out that “probably no case in the memory of anyone in this locality has aroused so much interest.” Indeed, the real-life murder was believed by many to be the model for the award-winning movie Fargo several decades later, although its co-creator, St. Louis Park native Joel Coen, denied it.

At any rate, the St. Paul jurists brushed aside Thompson’s contention regarding prejudicial publicity. They pointed out that news reporting was pervasive throughout the state and admonished the media for its lack of “self-restraint,” which it found in “short supply.” But the justices noted that Thompson had been given the unusual opportunity to select where he wanted the case to be tried, and he chose to go across the river before he was “sent up” it.

The court also pointed out that “criminal cases have to be tried somewhere,” and it was “doubtful” that any other place in the state would be immune from the massive reporting. While extensive, the news reporting did not create the type of “deep prejudice” that would warrant setting aside the jury verdict.

The case bounced around the federal and state judicial systems for years, highlighted by Thompson’s effort to overturn the verdict after Anderson, the $3,000 hitman, recanted his damning trial testimony. This about-face was judicially determined to be incredible because of the killer’s “little regard for the truth… [and] sanctity of the oath.”

Thompson, who never acknowledged his guilt, served nearly 20 years in prison. He became a technical systems analyst and obtained a real estate sales license upon his release before dying on his 88th birthday in 2015. One of his children followed in the family business—the law, not murder—becoming an attorney and then a well-regarded state court judge in Winona.

A Second Spousal Slaying

In the summer of 1977, 14-and-a-half years after the Thompson murder, a second spousal slaying attracted a great deal of attention: the murder of Shirleen Howard in Waseca. Like Carol Thompson, she was killed in her home by a hired assassin, Bruce Webber. Webber was hired by her husband, Donald Howard—the owner of a local hardware store—for a flashy piece of jewelry, a cache of merchandise, and a pair of installment payments totaling $3,500, perhaps reflecting inflation in the years since the Thompson murder.

Howard seemed to have an airtight alibi, as he was out shopping with his two young daughters at the time of the murder. But it fell apart upon further investigation, fueled by an inculpatory secretly recorded conversation with a police informant and testimony from others who recounted how Howard had approached them with a proposal to “knock off” his wife for a modest cash payment.

As the mastermind of the plot, Howard was convicted by a Waseca County District Court jury and joined Thompson on “murderer’s row” at the prison in Stillwater. His hired man, Webber, was convicted later by another Waseca jury and also sentenced to life imprisonment.

There were a few plot twists before Howard met that fate. During the investigation, he initially denied any involvement before acknowledging it, then unsuccessfully sought to keep his admission out of the trial. He managed to escape with the aid of a female friend and was on the run for a short while before being apprehended in New Orleans.

More Murder

There are, of course, many other notorious murders scattered over the landscape and law of the Twin Cities and the rest of the state. They include the Glensheen double murders of wealthy heiress Elisabeth Congdon and her night attendant in Duluth in 1977; the abductions and murders of young women like Dru Sjodin; the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officers on Memorial Day 2020; and the two recent ICE-related slayings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis.

But the spousal slayings are among those worth recalling—and lamenting—on the anniversary of one of the most well-known: the Thompson murder, 63 years ago this week.